Quote:
Originally Posted by Skipper7
Beetle- Are there any small weekly animal expos or small farms near your house? Generally either of these would have someone willing to sell you rabbits. Unfortunately, they would probably be live.
BSG- Why don't you reccomend RodentPro?
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Because of low quality feeders and zoonotic outbreaks. Even if they never happened, you can never be too careful, and there's been multiple reports over the years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron_S
That's a lot of words for not answering my question. I asked, what does length have to do weight of a prey item? You went through a lot of numbers and explanation that didn't prove your original fact.
For the record, I made a recommendation for this specific snake, not your well taken care of since birth snakes. That is why I went with a 15% weight of prey item every 3 weeks. That's a regime I'd begin with and then move further out. There's also a possibility this snake may be bred which is why I'd want a little more weight on her now and then slide back her feeding amount/frequency.
I do not like leaving large lumps in my snakes either so I'd trim down to a 10% food item to avoid that.
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I had re-read the thread because I had no clue what you were referring to.
The length is important because a boa that's over 7' starts getting too big for a regular large rat by itself to be an adequate meal by itself. By 8' a mix of rabbits becomes almost a necessity just because of the sheer size of the snake. As a snake grows, so does its food size, so I just assumed anyone reading would have been able to apply that knowledge to my reply.
Once a boa reaches 6', I've found that the increase in prey size can be measured by the foot with maybe a little adjustment made for the individual if they show to have a particularly fast or slow metabolism. Whatever helps them to maintain a healthy body shape. I figured knowing the snake's length would give me a good idea of the size and a good place to start with prey size, so that it would be easier to adjust to the snake's needs if necessary.
I provided the numbers in an attempt to show why length was important. My smaller male gets smaller rabbits and my bigger female gets bigger rabbits, but both get the same size rats simply because I do not trust the fat content in retired breeders. So that's why there's a discrepancy there.
Even a female being bred doesn't need to be pumped full of food to breed - in fact, building up fat reserves is what kills females or contributes to failed litters. You don't want fat, you want strong muscle mass, which can be achieved by just feeding them like you normally would and offering chances for exercise. If you did increase feeding before breeding, I wouldn't do it by much. Maybe a week more frequent or a slightly bigger meal while courting, but 10-15% is a huge jump to make from what they should be eating normally, that's double or more the size of what I feed mine. My proven jungle had a perfect litter (no stillborns or slugs) at only 9 lbs, I think she was around 7.5 lbs after giving birth. They key was that she was mature and muscly, not built up for breeding. If the snake was emaciated, I would advise a slightly different feeding schedule, but a slightly underweight snake should do fine on a similar schedule. The meals don't have to be quite as small as mine while the snake needs to gain weight, but even in a case like that I believe 10-15% to still be too much. You want a slow, steady weight gain so as not to flood their system.
Also, I'm fairly sure GyBeetle has addressed they do not want their husband breeding the boas, so I think it's safe to assume that for the time being these females will not bred, at the moment anyways.
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